The industrial historian's doting admiration of big business is matched by the farming historian's deferential enthusiasm for the big estate. Modern observers of peasant farming, in regions where peasant farms operate side by side with European ones, have noted that peasant farms are not necessarily less efficient than European ones. They may look disorderly where European farms look trim. They may rely upon traditional methods where European farms exploit the latest techniques. But, for all that, they are not necessarily making less good use of scarce resources than the European farms are. Plantation managers with much capital invested and hired labour to pay for, set themselves to get a high yield per plant and per worker. Peasant farmers with little capital invested and no hired labour to pay for, set themselves to get a high yield per unit of surface area cultivated. With certain crops the big farmer has the edge over the small farmer in the development of better strains, or in the growing of superior grades. Sometimes the introduction of a new crop demands an investment the small farmer cannot afford because it entails organizing transport and marketing facilities on a scale which is beyond his means. Often enough the business of providing the facilities, or developing the better strains, has been made possible by co-operative effort, or by the effort of promoters with no commercial interest in farming. But once the thing is done, the big farmer enjoys few advantages which he can deny to his small competitors who, thenceforth, in so many regions, and with respect to so many crops, competes on more or less level terms with him.1